Con l’incontro di Lunedì si è chiuso il progetto europeo New Lib. A Cinisello Balsamo, al Pertini, abbiamo riunito i rappresentati di molti Sistemi Bibliotecari lombardi -e non solo- per ragionare sull’eredità lasciata da questa grande operazione. Ancora una volta, Csbno si pone come catalizzatore delle diverse istanze territoriali e nazionali in tema di biblioteconomia, una gemma della Rete delle Reti che da anni cerchiamo di creare.
La Cultura è inclusione e la rete professionale e personale è nevralgica per il proprio sviluppo.
Una piccola presentazione del progetto. Approfondimenti qui: http://www.newlib.eu/
New Challenges for Public Libraries aims to create a transnational community formed around public libraries active in the European countries involved, in order to share good practices and test the design thinking approach (Human Centered Design Methodology) to develop innovative services and promote the active involvement of the citizens.
The project aims to set up transnational models for creative, sustainable and effective solutions to the challenges faced by libraries in the digital era.
An innovative and participative approach that partnership with cultural and creative industries will help to thrive.
Human centered innovation is the keyword of these new programs. It focuses mainly on the territory, re-evaluating the relationship with the local communities. The best practices show that libraries and librarians are rising and responding to the challenges, reframing spaces and functions, promoting innovative programs and services.
Il CSBNO-Consorzio Bibliotecario (Libraries Consortium) of North Milan in the North West of Milano Metropolitan (an area with 34 municipalities, 52 libraries and more than 750.000 inhabitants), is the most important library organization in Italy, with 80.000 users and 1 million loans per year. It has always been dedicated to service innovation and cultural activities, with an increasing attention towards audience development topics and methodologies. The consortium, which is working on a new organizational model to innovate their services and enlarge their public/audience, has always considered confronting itself with other European level realities particularly strategic, in the perspective of own services relaunch.
The Design Thinking for Libraries Toolkit , created by IDEO, as a result of a project funded by the Global Libraries program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in cooperation with the Chicago Public Library in the U.S. and Aarhus Public Libraries in Denmark, is a tool proposed by the Consortium to experiment, at European level, a new way of co-projecting the library services together with its users.
This proposal has been immediately accepted by Aarhus City, that, being IDEO partner, has tested the methodology in numerous libraries in Denmark as well as in other European realities. Aarhus City took part in the partnership as a “sparring partner” (or “expert partner” ) in support of the project process implementation defined by Toolkit, however to be adapted and experimented in the realities of the project partners’ countries Besides Aarhus City, there are other institutions that will contribute to the project with their expertise, in the field of HCD- Human- Centred Design and service/process innovation: the Romanian Progress Foundation, which is in partnership with 1,800 Romanian libraries and has consolidated experience in UCD field, team building, the use of new technologies for communication and storytelling/narration and Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca (Bicocca University) . The latter will contribute with their competencies in terms of didactics and technology, thus guaranteeing the scientific and methodological quality of the project .
The testing, scientifically supported by Bicocca University of Milano and “expert” partners , will concern other two areas in addition to CSBNO: the city of Braga in Portugal and the city of Ploiesti in Romania, which will take part in the project with their own public libraries .
The cohesion of the Regional Government of Lombardy shows not only a renewed interest in library services (which are remarkably structured and efficient in this region with more than 1,300 libraries on the territory) by policy makers, but also the will to share the experiment and to disseminate the results further on.
Lombardy Region will contribute in various parts of the project, and by signing a Collaboration Agreement with Politecnico of Milano – Design Department, will guarantee a methodology exchange
among other expert partners as well as mentoring and tutoring activities in the phases where the young creative will be involved (in designer roles).
The partnership establishes premises for a wide diffusion of the project results and transnational network building on a European scale, thanks to its extended presence in European Union area and for the possibility to share and link North European reality (more advanced in terms of services innovation).
New Challenges for Public Libraries aims to create a transnational community formed around public libraries active in the European countries involved, this in order to share good practices and test the design thinking approach (also called human centred design methodology), for conceptualizing innovative services and the active involvement of the citizens (audience). The project aims to set up transnational models for the development of creative, sustainable and effective solutions for public libraries facing the challenges of the “Information Society” and for a wider participation of all social groups – as actors and users – in the design and delivery of services more linked to needs of the local communities. This because design thinking processes (as successfully exploited in other fields) can efficiently support the challenges faced by libraries in the digital era. An innovative and participative approach which can thrive also thanks to partnership with cultural and creative industries.
The project points at citizens, the young, the elderly, children, the disabled, the immigrants, the woman…. Involving the in co-projecting process of innovative services that are more and more in compliance with the “information society” challenges.
The project has, as its second objective, the partners’ countries librarians ‘ capacity building, who will participate in teams within the on field “research-action” process (from the definition of project challenges through the ideation of direct Exchange with the users on the territory, ending with new services prototype creation), following an intense training activity sided and supported by the experts and mentors.
The project workshops, which will follow the dissemination activities at local, National and European levels, will allow to extend the innovative and pro-active approach awareness to a higher number of librarians, but also policy makers and people in charge of the services, during the course of the project The active involvement of the young creative throughout the project and team activities, as the third objective of the project, puts in place the cross-fertilization between a traditional cultural sector (libraries) and the creative cultural sector, represented by young designers.
As the fourth objective, the project aims to support the capacity of the European cultural and creative sectors (librarian and designer) to operate transnationally and internationally and to promote the transnational circulation of the project results and the transnational mobility of cultural and creative players, in particular in this case librarians and the young creative.
The fifth objective is not only to disseminate the project results through a wide communication strategy, but also to propose replicable models and “spill-over” that can produce effects and impact after the end of the project.
All these objectives can be extended and consolidated through the creation of Public Libraries European Network for HCD aimed at good practice exchange and mobility of the operators
